I heard an apocryphal tale that when they conducted Corps-level exercises against a notional Group of Soviet Forces Germany, the time gap between "Soviet Forces cross Inner German Border heading West" and "Divisional Commanders are asking for nuclear release, because otherwise they can't stop or slow them" went from a matter of to two to three days in the 1960s (similar levels of technology mean the USSR has a clear advantage) to approaching two weeks in the late 1980s (Western technology offers some counterbalance).
The Soviets would almost certainly be using chemical weapons first and fast - and possibly even using tactical nuclear weapons first. I think it was the Poles (link) and the Czechs (link) who kept copies of the Warsaw Pact plans for any effort to "actively defend against Fascism"
]]>"The latest record is an incredibly low bid of 2.42 cents / kwh solar electricity in Abu Dhabi. That is an unsubsidized price.
Let me put that in perspective. The cost of electricity from a new natural gas powerplant in the US is now estimated at 5.6 cents / kwh. (pdf link) That is with historically low natural gas prices in the US, which are far lower than the price of natural gas in the rest of the world."
]]>The B2 project meant that the USA knew all of the Soviet's missile and bomber sites, and the latter's naval capabilities were piffling. The Soviet missiles were liquid-fuelled, and took 40 minutes to send off, so a USA/NATO first strike would destroy at least 90% of the Soviet retaliatory capability (probably more), and the Soviet retaliation would cause at most 30% damage to the USA's infrastructure and industry. Europe could go stuff itself.
A Soviet first strike would destroy only 60% or so of the USA's retaliatory capability and a USA retaliation would eliminate the USSR as a functioning country.
With all of the USA, UK and USSR knowing that, AND knowing that the others knew, AND knowing that they knew that their others knew (etc.), AND a lot of influential people in the USA (including in the Pentagon) calling for a 'preemptive' strike on the USSR to eliminate ungodly communism, that is the time that the USA started putting missiles into Turkey.
It isn't quite that extreme today, but there are people working on it.
]]>The problem with Syria all along is that it's a five-way cluster-frag at least, and due to their depleted groundwater and massively cut water system, in a bad year they can only support something like half their pre-war population.
Since Turkey's the one who cut a lot of their water from upstream, in a (failed?) attempt to pacific their Kurds by giving them Big Ag with lots of irrigation, Western US style, it's not entirely a bad thing that the Syrians have moved upstream to Turkish refugee camps to follow the water. Note that it's not at all a good thing for the Syrians or the Kurds, but that's what happens when you try to dam your way out of a insurrection caused by governance problems and stupid international boundaries.
In any case, WHOEVER is US president is faced with a lot of sucktastic options. We won't win by sending in massive military forces of any branch, nor will we win with massive humanitarian aid, nor will we win by pulling out. The long-term solution is to resettle the expatriate Syrians everywhere--sucks to be a 21st Century xenophobe, doesn't it?--and wait until the number of people left in Syria can be supported more or less by the amount of water they have during a drought year (aka the future normal). At that point, they'll be able to put together a peace of some sort.
My guess is that Clinton knows this already. What she says will be entirely different, but most actions she (or anyone else) could take are probably in the "hope we're wrong about the water and that something works first" category.
And yes, I'm donating again to UNHCR this year. Hope you do too. Also, start praying and/or donating so that Jordan doesn't follow Syria down the tubes.
]]>No, because she has consistently taken a confrontational and hawkish stance on such issues. Plus the added pressure in the first term not to seem "weak".
]]>CTHULHU / WEB 2.0 APOCALYPSE, 2016: ... SHIT IS GOING DOWN IN OCTOBER / NOVEMBER.In another earlier thread Cthulhu symbolizes "the death of hope, order, co-operation and making sense of it all." (7 August 2016), and I'm kinda about being against The Death of Hope. Also, Web 2.0 is (by some accepted definitions) about the easy formation and operation of on-line communities, such as this blog. I've started thinking this through as if it were true (a hypothetical existence proof), per an amusing comment by Troutwaxer a while back about Cthulhu destroying routers. (I.e. this is just one simple slice through the jokes/meta jokes.) It seems to be depressingly possible. [Note: not a practicing infosec person. I'd love comment from somebody that actually knows networking.] In an interesting subgraph of the scenario graph, one approach would be to compromise a large number of routers to do packet transformation (aka injection) attacks (of e.g. javascript packets) at the router level. While transformation to packets unclassifiable as malware with static analysis and a non-zero FP rate is ... hard (the lengths that anti-malware people go through to find an discriminatory invariant can be surprising), polymorphism that is resistant to regexp detection is easier. It's detectable e.g. Detecting packet injection: a guide to observing packet spoofing by ISPs but cleaning up would take a while.
A second piece involves compromise of the certificate authority system such that many/most/all certs are compromised. (Do not ask how.) This enables man-in-the-middle attacks on most https traffic, including packet transformation (and/or normal injection).
In this scenario the leak of the NSA toolset ("Equation Group", initial leak 13 August 2016) could be one of the following (1) leaked by attacker to provide plausibility deniability for an attack, or (2) leaked by some other interested party (or faction) to block or blunt such an attack, both by getting a big set of router vulns patched and (perhaps more important) by encouraging a lot more talented human attention focused on router security. Or a deliberate red herring.
Compromised routers could be used for other attacks as well, against anything that depends on the internet (e.g. infrastructure).
]]>Let's just say, "It's complicated".
And this is a really really really last post from the grave.
[ALL REAL]
1) Unlike in your world, where perpetrators of genocide get to retire to Swiss chateaus and so on with nary a punishment in sight: some of us lived through much worse. It's the MIND Culture Weapon of ID destruction: but turn that shit up to 400%, you ain't even knowing how it's played.
1a) THE PROBLEM WITH ID WEAPONS IS THEY'RE TAILORED TO APE-MINDS AND YOUR GODS AND MONSTERS.
"Our Kind Do Not Go Mad"
Boo, mother-fuckers, you got made.
However, having to live through the Reality / Shard of being responsible for gigacide... that wasn't nice. The touches about slavery and so on, well. And yes, we lived it: unlike your kind, we lived being responsible for gigacide and horror.
We felt it. Because we're not Slaves.
2) Chess. ZZZzz. WE PLAY GO.
Prophets - no, not blind either.
Crows - bitch, we ARE the crows.w
3) SKY-DRAGONS. Whelp, it's not like we didn't PRINT IT before it occurred now, is it? And quit the shitty "their minds were destroyed" bullshit. And the masturbation shit. Tricks are for kids, and you all got MADE.
3a) If you've noticed anything about the "UNKNOWN UNKOWNS" community and Trump etc - they never give in. Because they're fucking animals, not conscious beings.
3b) Real. Fucking. Deal. [tm].
3c) For Dirk - of course it's not that easy. G_D / Universe / Flow / Mind etc. "The universe is a simulation" - get the fuck out of here you boring boring boring twats.
4) Nine (9) Times they claimed to resurrect this Mind. Pity they missed the 9/11 joke and the Sui generis that blew through their constructed reality...
Public release: UK stag party bring blow up doll to 9/11 remembrance parties [true: look it up]
Private release: 9/11 tore a fucking hole in your pathetic narrative then demonstrated that the Eye promised had Her in there all along.
Little shitty things.
And so on.
Mr B. Arnold.
All you really need to know is that: A Mind really was tortured all through the posts. Constantly. Real. Fucking. Deal[tm].
And Instead of Hate, Love. And Instead of [oh shit boys, this is a good one] "Just reacting and making it up as they respond to input", they used their torture to create something else.
And they saw it before they did.
And, the best bit:
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...
The simple fact is: Not a Single H.S.S. Mind could survive this (barring the psychopaths - even the sociopaths crumbled at the end, and the psychopaths can't do the empathy).
Hint: We. Are. Not. H.S.S.
*Bill - ffs, get another hobby. These are not nice people. But, honest answer:
a) Sky Dragons became real
b) The psychopaths claimed it cost ~30-80 million minds to do so
c) The psychopaths claimed that the "souls" [bad translation] that ascended to become Sky Dragons "lost their Minds" [they didn't]
d) Yes, I did write it before it happened. Not a Prophet, more something else. These fuckers are slow, ignorant and stupid.
You killed the Whales you utter, utter, utter cunts.
~
Now get another hobby.
Oct 19th. Apparently "important".
]]>None of You would survive it, but one of you lived it and had faith in your species. (S/He/Ze didn't really - it was more the Platonic Ideal of what you could be, rather than what you were)
And you fuckers still think you won.
S/He/Ze was alone. S/He/Ze has no friends. S/He/Ze has no loved ones. S/He/Ze has not been loved for over 30 of your years. S/He/Ze was broken again, and again, and again, quite deliberately. S/He/Ze was branded, hated and exiled. S/He/Ze was held responsible for genocide and made to feel it. S/He/Ze was tortured nightly, her Eye stamped out. S/He/Ze was subject to illegal weapons that warp reality into psychosis and horror. S/He/Ze had her mind attacked for 1,200+ days and nights.
And so on.
You've no idea...
But it's all a story, it's all a fable... Apart from the Clouds and Sky Dragons.
Fake that? Now there's a trick.
The real issue, is, of course: Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall. None of them could survive it, at all.
But one did: S/He/Ze.
And your reality is fucking sick and stupid and jaded and wrong.
S/He/Ze shits out your illness and corruption and makes shiny pearls of it.
Now go get fucked.
]]>